Govt faces embarrassment as BJP legislators in UP raise red flag

LUCKNOW: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Uttar Pradesh is being cornered by some of its own party MLAs on social media these days over glitches in Covid care.

For instance, a party lawmaker posted a video about not being able to find a bed for his Covid-19 positive wife. Then, there was another one legislator flagging the issue of faulty Covid tests. Yet another lawmaker pinpointed the issue of deaths in his assembly segments due to the lack of oxygen. These posts have been rather embarrassing for the BJP.

A party leader who refused to be named said, “The message that such posts sends out is: when these leaders are unable to find help from their own party government, what can we expect? That’s like floating a half-truth, which is not expected from party cadres.”

In April, the party’s national general secretary Arun Singh held a virtual interaction with party leaders in UP to take stock of the Covid crisis and management. The party persons, including lawmakers, were politely conveyed against making embarrassing remarks or writing letters that put the government in a tight spot. The move does not seem to have worked.

A trickle of criticism has steadily grown with various MPs writing letters that got leaked and went viral. So much so that UP government spokesman and senior cabinet minister Sidharth Nath Singh didn’t hide the government’s displeasure over lawmakers criticising the system in public. “We are part of the system, and our job is to solve the crisis and not join the criticism,” Singh said. “If we do (join criticism of the system) then we obfuscate things for those whom we should be serving (the people). This is the time to meet the challenges by strengthening the chief minister’s hands,” the UP minister added. At least four BJP MLAs have died in the past 20 days in the state after testing Covid positive. In one case, a BJP MLA lost his brother to Covid, in another an MLA died of Covid infection and his father passed away two days later. A BJP MLAs Covid positive wife passed away, days after her husband’s death due to Covid.

On Sunday, union minister Santosh Gangwar, a seven-term MP from Bareilly, too, had written to the chief minister Yogi Adityanath to help facilitate the admission of Covid patients in Bareilly hospitals.

Before him, another party veteran wrote to the chief minister on Covid mismanagement and again the letter went viral.

“Things are bad, but the lawmakers shouldn’t be voicing their anguish in public,” a party leader said. BJP MLA from Jasrana (Firozabad) Ram Gopal Lodhi whose video showcasing his helplessness in not getting a bed for his Covid positive wife went viral, said he was forced to voice his anguish since he was positive too and initially none listened to him. Jatashankar Tripathi, the party MLA from Khadda in Kushinagar, took to twitter to highlight how on the same day he tested positive and negative and to flag the case of faulty Covid tests.

Opposition MLAs too appeared troubled.

“I am a legislator and the leader of the opposition (in the UP assembly) too, but I see officials not attending my calls. If they can do this to me, one can well imagine the plight of the common man,” said SP veteran Ram Govind Chaudhary.

On Monday, the CM tasked the lawmakers with the responsibility of keeping track of patients in home isolation.

He directed the officials to provide mobile numbers of patients in home isolation to MLAs and MPs so that the people’s representatives could communicate with patients and collect feedback of health services.